How did our dieters do this week?

Our slimmers have lost over one and a half stone just three weeks into the diet. Find out how they are coping below

Click on the links in the blue box to sign up for your own personalised diet plan and to chat to our volunteers.

Ann Cozens

Starting weight: 16 stone 4 pounds

Weight at Week Three: 15 stone 13 pounds

Weight loss this week: 1 pound

Total weight loss: 5 pounds

Ann, 36, lives in Twickenham, London, with her husband and nine year old twins. She works for Sky Television as a transmission controller. She wants to lose two stone because she has arthritis and it would ease the pressure on her joints. She also hopes to go skiing later this year and wants to feel fitter on the slopes.

Ann has lost another pound this week but is finding it difficult to keep her mind on the diet. She is already studying a course in anatomy, physiology and massage at Richmond College and has just signed up for a Reiki course which starts in March.

'I am very busy and just can't seem to think about anything at the moment,' she says. 'I feel

like I need a tonic or something to pick me up. So I have started taking iron supplements as I have suffered from anaemia in the past.'

The biggest problem Ann faces on the diet is when she is working night shifts. This is because she nibbles on chocolate at work to stave off sleep.

But since starting the realslimmers diet, she has started taking a mix of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and sultanas to work to snack on. She says, 'I used to eat all the time as there was not a lot else to do, but now I am snacking on the seed mix and lots of fruit.'

Her efforts have inspired some work colleagues who have agreed to talk each other out of eating chocolate whenever they feel the urge. Ann has also convinced them to start coming to the gym with her.

'We have been going to the work gym at about three or four o'clock in the morning during my 'lunch' break,' she says. 'There's no one there so we don't get embarrassed.'

Dolores Bowskill

Starting weight: 12 stone 13 pounds

Weight at Week Three: 12 stone 8 pounds

Weight loss this week: 1 pound gained

Total weight loss: 6 pounds

Dolores, 52, lives with her husband in Gloucester and has a grown-up son and daughter. She works from home as a complementary therapist. She wants to lose two stone in time for her daughter's wedding in May.

Dolores has gained a pound this week, but she is not really sure why. 'I have been angelic

with my eating this week, but I got so depressed when I found out I had put on weight that I ended up eating a French stick and some chocolate at the weekend,' she says.

One explanation could be the fact she has switched from natural progesterone to HRT. 'I wasn't getting any sleep as I was flushing all night and was utterly exhausted all the time,' she says. 'I know the HRT makes you put on weight so I am convinced that is it.'

But even if the scales are not showing any weight loss, Dolores says her clothes are getting looser. She says, 'I have just measured myself and I have lost two inches from my waist, one inch off my hips and one inch from my bust since I started the diet. So it is coming off slowly which makes me feel better.'

It has been difficult for Dolores to stick to the diet this week as her husband celebrated his 50th birthday over the weekend.

Apart from the temptations of birthday cake and fruit punch, some friends who own a French patisserie brought a box of 50 chocolates as a present. She says, 'I had to have a piece of cake and now there is chocolate all over the house! It has definitely been a bad week.'